5 Minutes of Fame

My second gig of three this week (my busiest week so far, go me!), and my last chance to polish my set a little before Laughing Horse.

The evening was ably MCd by Pete Dobbing (who I'd heartily recommend to anyone looking to book a guest compere), and for once I went for an earlier spot. Partly to give me chance to try my set in a slightly different situation (read: sober audience) and partly because nobody ever wants to open.

Once again I recorded my performance and it seems like I'm getting there. The energy was nice and high and I managed to fit the whole thing into 5 minutes quite comfortably (ok, 5 minutes and 1 second, but what's a second amongst friends?). The first couple of gags seemed a bit rushed, but still got some good laughs. I think once I'd settled into the pace, I could keep the momentum going without it sounding forced, which was useful. I'll do some dry runs in front of the mirror to tighten the opening up a bit.

Directing particular lines at particular audience members seemed to work really well, and helped me get a good rapport with people. It felt like I was telling a gag directly to the person in question, which seemed much more natural than trying to address a whole room at once. That said, to keep that kind of focus was a bit tiring, especially making sure I was giving each part of the room enough one-on-one time. Something to keep practising methinks.

Its getting to be a tight 5 now, but I think I'll need to give myself a little wiggle-room. I've been finding it hard to cut gags that I like, even when they don't get as many laughs as other material. I really need to learn to be less precious about material and be more methodical in tweaking a set. So I'll be sitting down with the whole routine written out, and running through recordings to find which lines I can do without. A couple of my favourites will be on the chopping block, but if they only work for particular audiences, they're not worth keeping in a short set.

So its all hands on deck for the Laughing Horse comp on Saturday. Not really expecting to get through (there are some top-notch comics on the line-up), but want to be able to say I did my best, and having something to work towards has been great for getting me to focus.

Wish me luck!

Second gig back after Christmas (more on the first later), and I think I'm starting to get a feel for where I need to improve.

I'm working on polishing a 5 minute set for my Laughing Horse Heat on the 23rd, so I videoed my set to review afterwards (certainly a lot more reliable than my memory). The laughs were a little muted, a lot of which I think was down to my energy being a little low.

I went about a minute over time, even though I've previously timed the same material at below 5 minutes. Part of this was down to audience reactions, but watching the video, it seemed like I was wading through the lines. Although on the plus side, I did a lot better with eye contact, which I think helped greatly in building up an audience rapport.

I'm next performing at We Love Comedy on Monday 18th (looks to be a fantastic evening). And if I can keep up the pace and energy, I should have a great spot!

Last Wednesday was my final gig of 2009 - compering at 5 Minutes of Fame - and it proved to be a great way to round off my comedy year!

We had a brilliant line up of acts, old and new. Congrats have to go to Andrew Rodgers for absolutely storming the end of the first half (probably the best performance I've seen him give so far). Plus we were treated to some great last minute additions to the line up, including Eal Lyons, back from Bristol for Christmas, and Nelson de Gouveia, my previous co-conspirator in running 5MOF.

The audience were relatively small, but wonderfully warm and friendly. I opened with my usual "Ladies Man of the Year" routine, which went down pretty well, and then some applause exercises. I've been doing the same one for a while now, and thinking I should probably rehearse the dang thing, as its quite clear I'm blagging it and some of the energy is lost as a result.

I tried out some new material on opening the second section, which went down surprisingly well, and I managed not only to win a bet with Nelson (that I could get a certain phrase into the routine) but I also got probably the biggest laugh I've ever had (from one of the smaller crowds as well, go me!). And it wasn't from a formulaic rule-of-three gag, or a story clumsily implying a woman is of dubious morals before revealing she's my mother (and hoping nobody believes the story). It came from what I would have called a weak similie (followed by a weaker metaphor).

I'm aiming to get a showreel together, so I videoed this gig, and it was clear that the humour at that point came mainly from my performance (overconfidence, sleaze and a slim grasp of reality). Watching the rest of the night, there were a lot of places where my performance was letting me down. I often lost eye contact with the audience, and dropped my voice at ad-libs and some key phrases, so the meaning was lost.

So I think that my big aim for next year should be tweaking my performance. Fix my posture, keep eye contact (something I noticed the best acts doing constantly, talking directly to individual audience members for a sentence or two each), and learn my material so thoroughly that I can focus on getting the best reaction from it that I possibly can.

I've been writing a lot lately (probably got about 30 mins worth of tested material now), and I should probably re-focus some of that time to rehearsing and reviewing my current sets. Recording every performance will be massively useful for review (even with just the voice memo function on my phone). I should be getting plenty of practice as well: certainly need to book myself more spots in the New Year. One spot in a week is good, but 2 or 3 would be even better!

Another outing for Ian from Human Resources this week, so on Tuesday night I carefully ironed and packed my shirt, trousers and hideous tie, completely forgetting to take the right shoes.

So there I am, arriving at Rudy's Revenge wearing smart clothes one step removed from a business suit, and a pair of beat up Sketchers. If the Shawshank Redemption is to be believed, I could have got away with it, but didn't want to take the risk of someone noticing and having a heckle presented to them on a silver platter. So I improvised.

I spent a few minutes over the night coming up with a pretense for being barefoot, even going so far as to concoct a cheesy rhyme to justify it ("rage can't be projected, when your feet aren't protected"). I was later told this was a pretty good cover. Unfortunately, the majority of my act bombed horribly.

There were probably a number of factors at play: the audience didn't really warm to the character (the only real laughs I got were from some very formulaic gags and funny faces), I was a little distracted by the hastily-added cover lines, and I couldn't find a good way of acknowledging the lack of laughter. Ordinarily, any comment on a failed gag gets at least a small positive reaction (when used sparingly), but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do this without breaking character, especially seeing as the Ian set is ostensibly based at a conference, rather than a comedy club.

A couple of things I can take from the experience: I should rehearse my sets as often as I can, so I can focus on the performance rather than the words. I rekon I could have squeezed a few more laughs out of the set with better timing and by injecting a dash more absurdity into Ian's mannerisms. Secondly, I should come up with some cover lines in case things are going badly - which would have to be tailored to the character and situation. And finally, I should remember my bloody shoes.

Refreshed after my short holiday, I launched back into standup with a night compering at 5 Minutes of Fame!

I'm finally feeling like I'm getting the hang of this compering malarky. I felt far more comfortable interacting with the audience, and even managed to come up with some off-the-cuff gags riffing on their responses. Granted these gags didn't all work...but one or two went down quite well and that was a nice start.

I also tried out a few little bits of new material. Some hits and some misses, but definitely a few things to try again another night. I'm trying to build up my collection of short gags so I can mix things up a little easier and I have something to fill in small gaps when they come up. And if I can get a few short gags on the same theme, well, there's a routine!

So I guess the lesson I've learned this week is to keep practising as much as I can, and things will gradually come easier. Which is nice to know.

This week's 5 Minutes of Fame was guest compered by the fantastic Sean Brightman, so I got another chance to give Ian from Human Resources an outing.

This was a particularly good week, with a crowded room and a really warm audience. After a couple of sets as Ian, I was getting used to the structure of the material (and my timing seems to be getting better, but still room for improvement), so I started playing around with it a little, replacing the odd gag with something tailored to the audience, which I think worked quite well, and I can probably do more of as time goes on. The real challenge will be real ad-libbing and audience interaction in character: something to aim for.

Again, it was interesting to see how different audiences react to different things. Tonight's audience were a little cold to the long list of deviant sexual practices in the middle of the routine - although a few people sheepishly admitted to me later that this was their favourite part - and the biggest laughs were probably from the most cerebral gags. Which was a surprise, but its nice to know the routine has enough variety to get such different reactions at different times. I'd think of a good metaphor for this, but the best I could come up with was Marmite: whose love-hate reactions are far more reliable and have little to do with what it is spread on (although I'm sure a few Marmite haters enjoy Twiglets).

And now I'm off on holiday, hurrah!

Struck down with an annoying cold, I was dreading compering 5 Minutes of Fame this week, but surprisingly it was probably one of my better nights.

After last Friday's harsh lesson in audience rapport, I was determined to get a little compering practice in, but a slight sore throat at the weekend had turned into a full blown cold by Wednesday and left me determined to spend as little time on stage as possible. My plan was to come on with a couple of short sure-fire gags, then just keep the acts coming.

The first part of the plan worked fine, I even had chance to pop in a few lines about my illness that I'd come up with earlier in conversation with the barman, and launched into a quick applause exercise to get the energy up, designating a louder member of the audience as my "cheerleader" (which proved a nice trick to get them on side). Once I'd brought the first act on, I kept mostly out of the way.

Then something interesting happened. I relaxed. Having had a nice experience at the top of the night, with my cold not getting in the way, I forgot about "performing" and just started enjoying the acts. Towards the end of the evening, I even managed to slip in a few off-the-cuff gags about the previous acts' topics, which went down surprisingly well.

Guess the biggest thing to take away from this is to calm down when I'm compering, and try to enjoy the night. If something witty comes to me, great, but there's no need to really put a lot of thought and effort into anything mid-show. I get the feeling that my being relaxed could also rub off on the audience.

Also had some really nice comments from fellow acts and performers. As well as an observation I'd not heard before: I have a habit of pacing the stage a lot (this bit I knew) which can distract from what I'm saying (this bit I didn't). Given how well things went last week leaving the mic in the stand, I'm inclined to agree. Provided that this wasn't the only reason it went well.

A very exciting week at 5 Minutes of Fame this week, not only did we have a TV crew in recording for a programme on Sky One, but it was also my 30th gig!

This week's guest compere was the fantastic Alexandra Clarke, and with more acts than you could shake a stick at, we limited everyone to a strict 5 minutes. So a shorter set for me this week, but that probably helped me trim out some of the clutter, forcing me to pick my best bits and keeping them to time.

Its hard to strike a balance between saying enough in the setup to give the punchline meaning and keeping it short enough to give a good impact, but the cliches are true: less is more. I'm finding I can get rid of a lot of waffle and needless words by rehearsing more and more, so I really need to spend more time running through my bits until I can almost say them on auto pilot (then squeeze out some more humour from the performance rather than just the words).

Of course, the downside of this is that really concise material won't fill as much time, but I can take that as encouragement to write more, and its win-win!

Another great 5 Minutes of Fame, with a gob-smackingly awesome selection of acts, and probably the biggest audience we've had yet!

I was compering again this week, and it got off to a great start, with a little bit of material at the top of the night going down really well. I'm thinking I might keep to doing a small amount of my best stuff at the start and then not do any more material.

However, after a while, it became difficult to keep the audience's attention in between acts, and we had odd people starting to chatter and get up to go to the bar before I could introduce the next act. I guess in situations like that the only thing to do is not leave any sort of a gap, going straight from one act to another without room to slip a piece of paper between them. The trick will be sensing it before its going to happen.

Despite this, the acts all had a great time, and were generally very well received. And I even got one over on a heckler...but in a nice way.

Another great 5 Minutes of Fame! Friendly audience, loads of brilliant acts, and I'm just about getting the hang of my current routine...just in time to replace it!

Dale offered to compere this week, so I was doing a spot in the middle of the evening. Perfect place to do it...the room was warmed up, and plenty of time to have a drink afterwards without having enough to induce a hangover the next morning.

I tried tweaking my performance this time, seeing if I could wring a little bit of extra humour from my opener. And it worked pretty well, changing personality completely once I reached the "point" to fool the audience a little. Definitely a tool to use again elsewhere, but sparingly.

The rest of my material went similarly to previous weeks, good start and finish, with a dip in the middle. I'm thinking some of that stuff should be dropped, or otherwise heavily edited. I'm still waffling quite a bit, so I should probably spend some time condensing and heavily rehearsing some segments to get them as tight as I can.

All that said, I'm planning to try something a little different. I'm working on some character stuff for the week after next. After slipping in a couple of the gags this week, I'm looking forward to getting the whole thing in front of an audience.